Job training is the single most important aspect of hiring employees to work for your business. Those who fail to allocate appropriate man hours to the job of training new associates do little more than compromise the stability of their operational infrastructure, inviting loss.

Before examining different or new training options, a company needs to make sure they aren’t wasting their training efforts and funds on employees that are not right for the job or even the company. Properly vetting a candidate by doing thorough background checks, second or even third interviews, and following through with reference checks, will ensure that you are choosing the right candidates.

Once you are confident you have assembled the right team for your new business, you can explore training methods. There are many options available to business owners with respect to job training, any and all of which can be implemented in a single training module. Let’s examine them:

On Site

Most business owners and HR departments train their associates on site. Hands-on training is thought to be one of the best training options for small business owners, chiefly for the fact that success in the workplace relies upon practical rather than scholastic knowledge. The brain is conditioned to cause us to repeat our own behavior, rather than to emulate others, the speed and efficacy with which a given associate completes a task assigned him is in direct correlation with the frequency with which he performs it. Additionally, onsite training affords you the option of learning how best to communicate with your associate. Use trial and error to hone your approach to communication.

Training DVD’s

Training DVD’s should be incorporated into your training modules, but should be regarded as supplementary only. There are two advantages to adding this type of approach. The first is that the associate can watch the DVD’s unsupervised, affording you additional man hours to allocate to other priorities. The second is that they give associates an overview of the basic operations of the store. By extension, their brain will have been programmed to recognize the correct way to do things–and flag it–as you begin hands on training later. Individuals absorb information more quickly if they are given an overview of the material prior to receiving a comprehensive explanation of it.

Webinars

You may need or want to train associates remotely. For this type of training, the benefits of video webinars are as far reaching as your internet connection will allow. While no two individuals learn in the same way, studies have shown that individuals learn more quickly when they can empathize with their speaker, chiefly for the fact that human interaction causes a spike in brain waves that textual content cannot.

The mystery ingredient is empathy. Video webinars allow the speaker to lend importance to certain aspects of his presentation using body language, and changes in the volume, pitch and tone of his voice. Whenever the speaker uses one of these attributes, the brain is alerted tourgency, causing it to flag the material automatically. Any information presented thereafter is flagged by extension, processed by word association and stored for future use.

Another benefit of video webinars is that even on site employees can access important information from any device with a connection to the internet, whether that is at home at two o’clock in the morning, or over their coffee break at a quiet cafe up the street. This affords employees who wish to advance their careers the opportunity to study operations a nose above their pay grade, an intimate knowledge of operations to which they had not been introduced by any other means affording them a competitive edge.

Ultimately, there are many training options that you can employ in your startup. Different options are more suited for certain situations than others. As you benchmark your infrastructure, consider the advantages that each option will afford you.

About the Author:Dee Fletcher is a freelancer and ghost writer. She writes mostly about current trends or events in various industries, but also writes articles related to small business. She works from her home in Southern California and loves to visit the beach as often as she can.